OT: UNC is Screwed

Submitted by AAB on

Yahoo! Sports has an article up linking John Blake and Marvin Austin to an agent, including hotel receipts for Austin with the agency's name on them.  I don't see how Blake's actions don't land UNC in "lack of institutional control" hell.

link

mejunglechop

September 30th, 2010 at 12:11 AM ^

 

three sources said documents show the relationship between Wichard and Blake also extended into the financial realm several times over the past three years. Those instances included:

• At least six wire transfers from Wichard’s private bank – The First National Bank of Long Island – to Blake.

• A $45,000 personal loan to Blake from The First National Bank of Long Island.

• A Pro Tect Management credit card issued in Blake’s name.

GAME OVER

AAB

September 30th, 2010 at 12:32 AM ^

The NCAA still has the power to ban schools from competing in a sport without any preliminary sanctions in cases of particularly serious violations.

But it's Wikipedia, so I have no idea if that's true or not, or what standards govern if it is true.

SpartanDan

September 30th, 2010 at 12:43 AM ^

I have no inside knowledge, but my understanding is it would have to be really serious for a first-timer to get the death penalty. Like SMU x3. UNC won't be getting the death penalty for this unless it involves the vast majority of the team and the coaches/athletic department.

They may get hit reasonably hard, but I don't think they get hit any worse than USC, probably not even quite that hard.

Michigan Shirt

September 30th, 2010 at 9:36 AM ^

I also remeber reading somewhere that the NCAA would try to refrain from handing out the death penalty to a program anymore as they saw how much it damaged SMU's program. I would think that for them to hand out the death penalty again, it would have to be repeated violations year after year when they are already on probation for the same thing. Not saying it can't happen, just that I think they would slap them with some major penalties before shutting down the program for a few years.

mejunglechop

September 30th, 2010 at 12:43 AM ^

The repeat offender thing is right as a general rule, but if violations are serious enough this requirement has been waived. Even if it isn't waived the school doesn't have to be a repeat football offender. If the field hockey team has had major violations in the last five years, any sport is eligible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty_(NCAA)#Current_criteria

GoBlueInNYC

September 30th, 2010 at 12:41 AM ^

I'm pretty sure SMU's scandal went "all the way to the top," so to speak.  They got busted for paying players over years.  That is, the program itself was paying players, not outside boosters or agents.  And they got caught doing it repeatedly.  Plus, NCAA officials have stated that if they knew what was going to happen to SMU's program (perennial national power house to over 20 years of irrelevance), they probably wouldn't have handed down the death penalty.

UNC is more than likely going to have some severe sanctions come down the pipe, but nothing on the order of the death penalty.

Needs

September 30th, 2010 at 1:53 PM ^

That was the former Governor of Texas, Bill Clements. He seemed to regard the payments almost as a contract he'd made with players. And if you cruise around smu.edu, you'll see a lot of things named after him, the history department, a center for the study of the southwest. Donating lots and lots of money to the university was his way back into the university's good graces after the scandal.

MGoRob

September 30th, 2010 at 12:47 AM ^

Regardless.  As mentioned earlier, this is worse than USC.  So there penalty would like be much worst than what USC got and I'm afraid to know what that would be.  I equate USC's sanctions as the "death penalty" in today's world.  Totally barring a team from competing destroys the entire program and the NCAA doesn't want that.

maizenbluedevil

September 30th, 2010 at 12:32 AM ^

I can't believe I'm gonna take the side of UNC....but.....

Some of the punishments that are handed out, relative to $$$ and agents and all that, are absolutely ridiculous.  

Why punish a whole program over one bad apple?  

Yes, I know UNC had quite a few, given the academic thing as well.

But, the reality is, most of the kids on UNC's team probably do the right things, and now their college experience is ruined.  They wanted to go to UNC and compete for championships, now it's likely they won't be able to.  They'll have to either choose between staying at UNC and not compete for championships, or compete for championships at a school other than UNC, after having to go through a transfer.

It's basically like those kids getting a letter from the NCAA saying something like:

"Hey,

Your teammate screwed up bigtime.  Now you're fucked too, just because.

Love,

NCAA"

If it's an issue where a coach is partially at fault for not enforcing compliance, it's still screwy.  He can just leave and the school has to deal with the ensuing shitstorm.  

It's like dropping an A-bomb when a rocket propelled grenade will do. 

I feel bad for all the other kids on UNC's team, that all they did wrong was be in the wrong place at the wrong time, through no fault of their own.

AAB

September 30th, 2010 at 12:35 AM ^

It's not just a coach not enforcing compliance, it's (allegedly) a coach taking money from an agent and potentially funneling players to that agent.  That's...really, really bad.

As to your concerns about the players, that can be solved by making it incredibly easy for players to transfer out when this kind of thing happens (like how juniors and seniors at USC were allowed to transfer out because the school's sanctions lasted through the end of their careers).

maizenbluedevil

September 30th, 2010 at 12:43 AM ^

I agree that's "really, really bad", as you put it.

Inadequate choice of words on my part, but my point still stands, It's punishing the wrong people. 

If that proves true, Davis should get a lifetime ban from coaching college football.  

As for the players, it's about more than football.  They choose a school based on the whole package of what that school has to offer.  I won't admit this publicly in real life, but UNC is a good school.  It has a nice campus, Franklin St., hot chicks, quality academics, etc.  Many of the players who play at UNC probably took all that into consideration, in addition to playing football and competing for championships.

Why should that be ruined for them because someone else screwed up?  It's not like colleges are interchangeable, they shouldn't be put in a position by the NCAA of choosing between transferring, and not being able to attend the school they chose, and staying there but having their athletic experience ruined.

It's punishing the wrong people.

AAB

September 30th, 2010 at 12:51 AM ^

is a regime where a school has no incentive whatsoever not to hire John Calipari, or Kelvin Sampson, or -- apparently -- Butch Davis.  Under the current rules, if you're an athletic director, and you know Calipari can help you win, but you also know he's probably dirty as hell, you at least have to think twice about hiring him, because when Calipari gets caught for doing what Calipari does, the entire program gets taken down.  If that's no longer a part of the equation, then there's no reason not to hire a dirty coach.  If he gets caught, he's gone and your school is otherwise fine.  If he doesn't get caught, you get to hang banners in the rafters. 

myrtlebeachmai…

September 30th, 2010 at 12:42 AM ^

When members of your coaching staff are running a semi-pro agent service, and allowing/aiding academic fraud, as appears to have been going on here, what else can you do than punish the school?   The school can't get off with "sorry, we didn't know".  It's their JOB to know.

In these severe cases, the NCAA will allow clean kids an "out", just like they did with USC.  Perhaps kids should be a little headier when choosing a school?  I can't imagine that there's a program out there taht's sleazy dirty on the back-side (agent/senior player), yet Godly squeeky clean on the front-side (recruiting).  How naive do we have to be to assess their last recruiting class as arbitrarily choosing UNC?

Most of the NCAA palyer/agent issues have been just that.  Punishment for the player, period.  Even so, it's hard to believe the apples around the bad one don't start to rot too (except for maybe a smaller school with less apples).

MGoRob

September 30th, 2010 at 12:53 AM ^

Tell that to all the Enron employees who lost their job b/c of a couple "bad apples". Innocent people get hurt, that's unavoidable. But these players will be offered a place at other schools, and a free ride to go with it. I don't quite feel that bad for them.

The issue is there are rules and by not playing by them, they've created an unfair advantage over other schools that abide by the rules. It's not like they didn't know they were doing wrong, but when you're that high up on the ladder, there are to be repercussions.

club_med

September 30th, 2010 at 3:42 AM ^

You'd be naive to think that the other players don't know what's going on. Its not like all of these guys don't know the rules or the potential consequences for doing these things, and can't see their team mates getting into this. Ignoring your team mates' rule-breaking (in whatever form - agents, doping, etc) is one thing, but then trying to act as though only those who physically took a sack with a dollar sign on it are the guilty ones and that everyone else involved should be absolved of responsibility is absurd.

Seth9

September 30th, 2010 at 12:25 AM ^

...are when I miss the Bylaw Blog. Thanks a lot [incredibly stupid SEC-school blogger that I can't remember the name of] for revealing his identity.